"If there is an app for that"

Free Apps to Download TODAY ONLY 07/16/2016

July 16, 2016 by macjeff

Lander Hero , Paint Hack , Devil Shard and more

Universal:

Lander Hero ( $1.99 → FREE )

Utilize on-screen buttons to propel the lunar lander through space and around obstacles. Try to collect all of the stars in each level before landing to earn a perfect score. Keep an eye on your shield and fuel levels, because you don't want to find out what it's like to be without either. The game includes three planets, 50 levels, two modes, and achievements and leaderboards via Game Center.

Devil Shard ( $0.99 → FREE )

The evil emperor has started a war no one ever wanted. Play as the hero and put a stop to it before it’s too late. The game combines the now standard match-three mechanic to allow you to build up your defenses, restore health, and attack your enemies. You’re able to swap tiles on the screen by tapping one and then tapping on an adjacent tile. You don’t have to always create matches when swapping tiles, which will come in handy to help you avoid creating matches for your enemy. The game includes eight stages, 37 enemies to battle, nine incarnations to summon, 32 types of equipment to unlock, and achievements and leaderboards via Game Center.

Weblock - AdBlock for apps and websites ( $1.99 → FREE )

Weblock works with any Wi-Fi enabled iDevice. The app will generate a unique configuration link within the Setup menu. Then launch your Settings app, choose the network you’re on, and set your HTTP proxy to “Auto.” A new URL field will appear, where you can paste your unique link. Then make sure to kill all of your active processes, and none of your apps will show text ads, banners, or pop-ups ever again. It even works with YouTube and Pandora! The app also includes the ability to create your own rules and filters, and iCloud support.

Spark Camera – capture, edit and share beautiful videos ( $1.99 → FREE )

Spark Camera is remarkably easy to use for a video editor. You’re able to record clips by holding your finger on the screen and releasing to stop. Go ahead and capture as many clips as you want. Once you’re finished recording, Spark allows you to add filters, add music, trim and rearrange clips, and even import videos from your camera roll. Your creations can be shared via Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Messages, or AirDrop.

Paint Hack ( $1.99 → FREE )

Paint Hack provides the biggest and craziest selection of brushes you’ll ever find in the App Store. With 90 brushes in total, including totally off-the-wall experimental brushes, there’s a tool for every artist. Paint Hack also features a smooth and versatile painting engine that’s able to assist in drawing lines, circles, and squares, and can even recognize corners and points to perfectly align shapes. The app includes support for thousands of undos and redos, stylus support, custom color palettes, video recording, and the ability to use as many layers as your iPad will allow.

Source link: http://appadvice.com/apps-gone-free

Notebook, Darby, Prisma and other apps to check out this weekend

July 16, 2016 by macjeff

Pokémon Go fever is still in full swing, but for those of you looking to try out different apps and games this weekend, iDB has you covered. In this edition of our Apps of the Week roundup, we have a beautiful new productivity app, a video social network for DIY’ers, a cool new photo editing app, and of course some great new games for you to check out.

Notebook

I realize we’ve featured a few note-taking apps in our weekly roundup recently, but I still felt this one was worth mentioning. Notebook is a beautifully-designed app that allows you to take notes, create checklists, record audio and capture moments. You can organize all of this media into various notebooks, search for them, and sync them between all of your devices. Other features include gesture-driven UI, customizable note cards, Apple Watch support and more. Notebook is available for free.

Darby

Looking to take on a new project this weekend? Find inspiration with Darby. The app features hundreds of how-to videos for tips on everything from party-planning to home decor, cooking and more. Meet and live chat with other Makers, and get advice and tips from the Darby community. Save your favorite videos to your own channel to watch later, or share with friends. Think of this like a social network, driven by video, for DIY’ers. Darby is available for free.

Prisma

The App Store is already full of thousands of photo editing apps, but this one is a bit different. Using a unique combination of neural networks and artificial intelligence, Prisma helps you turn memorable moments into timeless art. It’s capable of transforming your photos into artworks using the styles of famous artists including Munk and Picasso, as well as world famous ornaments and patterns. And once your masterpiece is finished, quickly share it to your favorite social network. Prisma is available for free.

Suicide Squad: Special Ops

Typical movie tie-in games are usually pretty bad. They are poorly done, due to small budgets and unrealistic timelines, and littered with IAPs. But Suicide Squad: Special Ops is not your typical tie-in. This FPS was built from the ground-up for great mobile gameplay. Play as Harley, Deadshot and other villains as you fight to survive as long as you can against challenging enemies. Compete against other players and record your game footage to share on social media. No Internet connection required or IAPs (that I’ve seen). This game is available for free.

Politaire

Here’s an interesting new Solitaire game with a Poker twist. In Politaire, your objective is to make a winning hand with your current 5 cards. The gameplay is pretty simple: players are dealt a hand, and can then swipe away cards they don’t want until they’ve put together a winning Poker hand. Discarded cards will go back into the pile. The game is well designed, features Game Center leaderboards, one-handed portrait control, Night Mode and more. Politaire is available for free.

More apps you should check out

• Apple’s free app of the week: Super Sharp
• Pokémon Go is now available in Italy, Spain, Portugal, UK and Germany

These apps have been updated

• Lightroom for iOS gains direct RAW imports
• Camera+ 2.0 for iPad hits: Apple Pencil support, selective brushing, overhauled UI & more
• At long last, Facebook Messenger implements 3D Touch Peek and Pop
• ABC revamps its iPhone, iPad and Apple TV apps, adds throwback shows
• First Pokémon GO update squashes bugs, no longer requires full Google Account access

Source link: http://www.idownloadblog.com/2016/07/16/apps-of-the-week-july-16/

Poker and Solitaire Become One in the Addictive Politaire

July 15, 2016 by macjeff

Politaire (Free) by Pine Entertainment is a combination of both poker and solitaire. If you enjoy card games like Sage Solitaire and Pair Solitaire, then you will love what Politaire brings to the table.

Like everyone else in the world, I have wasted tons of hours just playing solitaire on the computer back in the ‘90s. I mean, who didn’t? It was a pre-installed game that was fun to play to pass the time, and when you cleared out all of the cards and saw that awesome celebratory animation, you couldn’t help but cheer, right? Yeah, maybe that was just me as a younger kid, but the memories are real. I’ve enjoyed playing card games ever since then, especially if they’re fresh new takes on the classic solitaire. When the news of Politaire hit my inbox, I was eager to give it a try for myself, and I’m so glad I did.

From a visual perspective, Politaire is stunningly gorgeous. Like the other two solitaire games I’ve mentioned, Politaire has a minimalistic but stylish aesthetic that you’re bound to just fall in love with on first sight. The background is white with a subtle paper texture to it, which shows how much care the developers put into creating the right design. If the white is too bright for you at night, there is a Night Mode that can be toggled in the settings, which turns the white background into a dark blue black. The colorful card back contrasts nicely with either backdrop, and the card faces have a beautiful designs that will catch your eye. Animations in the game are as smooth as butter, and while there isn’t too much in terms of background music, Politaire has some delightful and whimsical sound effects. For a mashup card game, Pine Entertainment did a great job in the visual department.

There are two game modes in Politiare: Single and Double Deck, though the latter has to be unlocked through the in-app purchase, which also gets rid of advertisements. Single and Double Decks still play the same, though, it’s just the fact that Double has twice as many cards for you to go through. The main objective for both remains the same: clear the board by making poker hands with the five active cards in your hand. If you’re unfamiliar with poker hands, there is a handy reference guide that you can pull up at any time, even while you play. The hands that you make will net you a varying amount of points, depending on what it is, with the most being a royal straight flush. If you are able to get consecutive hands, that starts a combo, which means even more points. The game ends once you clear out all of the cards (win), or if there are no moves remaining (lose).

Playing the game is simple enough. In the beginning, you’ll start off with five cards in your hand. On each turn, you can select up to three cards by tapping on them. If you want to discard them, just swipe up, and then you’ll draw an equal amount of cards from the draw deck that you just discarded. The cards you just discarded go back in the pile and show up again once you cycle through everything else. When you make a poker hand, the cards will automatically slide up and you’ll see what hand you just made. The game will also tell you how many points that was worth, which is also useful when you start a combo. And since you’re able to see what the next three cards from the draw stack will be, it’s worth it to plan ahead. Even though you can discard cards from your hand and reuse them later, there is an end to the draw stack — once it’s out of cards, that means game over if you didn’t clear out your hand. When you do clear the board, your score is multiplied depending on how fast you were able to finish.

The thing with Politaire is that since it’s a free game, you only get single deck mode to start with. And after each game, you’ll have to endure a video ad. I honestly don’t mind ads if they’re not too obnoxious, but I thought that seeing a video after each game was a bit annoying. Personally, I thought the game was fun enough for me to enjoy regularly, so I ended up buying the in-app purchase option for Double Deck mode and removal of ads. But this comes with a bonus: more card back and face designs, which are great if you get bored with the standard design.

While the world seems to have been enveloped in Pokémon Go fever, I still need some games to enjoy in my downtime when not hunting for Pokémon. Politaire fits that bill perfectly, and it’s a card game that I’m loving at the moment whenever I have a few minutes to spare. The minimalistic visuals are perfect and the mashup gameplay of poker and solitaire means an interesting and challenging puzzle. I just wish that the ads weren’t so frequent, and only showed up after every few games instead.

I highly recommend checking out Politaire if you’re into card game puzzles at all. Plus seriously, who can resist poker and solitaire rolled up into one? Politaire is available on the App Store as a universal download for your iPhone and iPad for free with an in-app purchase for ad removal and Double Deck mode.

Source link: http://appadvice.com/reviews

Vegetables with Attitude Duke It Out in Combo Critters

July 15, 2016 by macjeff

Combo Critters (Free) by Lucky Kat Studios is a casual RPG game that has you exploring and conquering planets while collecting your own army of unique and interesting creatures. If you are looking for a game that has a fresh and distinctive take on the monster-collecting genre, then Combo Critters is just what you need.

As a kid, I grew up with franchises like Pokémon and Digimon. It was all the rage back then (and the Pokémon craze is certainly back with Pokémon Go) and it was just super fun for me just watching the cartoons after school and collecting cards and playing some of the related video games when I could. I’m not sure what it is, but there is just always something fun about collecting virtual, imaginative monsters that makes me giddy. And while Pokémon Go has arrived and has me hunting down various Pokémon all over the real world, sometimes I just want to relax at home but still collect creatures on my mobile device. That’s where Combo Critters comes in. I had an opportunity to try the game out at GDC this year, and I must admit that the game has come a long way since I first saw it.

Visually, Combo Critters is a beautiful retro throwback, since it is all done up in fun pixel art. If you’re like me and grew up with the 8-bit graphics, then you’ll feel right at home with Combo Critters. Despite the pixelated art, I still found the various creatures and environments to be packed with plenty of detail. Colors in the game are bright and vivid, which is perfect considering the super cartoonish style of Combo Critters. Animation is also buttery smooth and fluid, so I had no lag on my iPhone 6s Plus. The chiptune soundtrack is also fun to listen to as you play, and sound effects are a nice touch. My favorite part about the game, though, is how every critter you come across or collect has their own outrageous design — the developer was truly creative when coming up with this game.

Combo Critters, despite being a casual RPG game, is level-based with six different worlds for you to explore. While that doesn’t sound like too much, the game has over 70 critters that you can encounter and even collect to build up your own team of stab-happy carrots, mean looking onions, and fat cats. There is also the combination mechanic, where you can combine two creatures you’ve collected to make a new or different one, so the real fun in the game is finding critters and combining them to see what you can come up with. But the main objective on each world is to collect the puzzle pieces to reveal the boss, defeat him, and then move on to the next planet.

The controls in the game are simple and straightforward: just swipe on the screen to move your character. You can also just keep your finger on the screen to move continuously. As you wander around to collect the puzzle pieces, you’ll see other critters scattered about, minding their own business, that is, until you get near them. When you run into one, the battle sequence begins.

In Combo Critters, you can have a team of up to three monsters to take into battle. The one who shows up first will always be the first one in the lineup, but you can alternate your critters at any time by tapping on their card. Tapping on the critter you want to use will also initiate a standard attack, which enemies follow up on with an attack of their own. The number next to the heart icon on each monster’s card is their number of hit points, and the number next to the sword icon is how much damage their standard attack will do. Once a monster does three normal attacks, the “Special Attack” button pops up and you can activate it to unleash a flurry of hard-hitting attacks that do much more damage, as long as you follow the instructions on the screen before time runs out.

After you defeat an enemy, you’ll have an opportunity to capture a new creature that you just fought (if it was a group of at least two or more, the selected monster is random) and add it to your collection. The percentage of catching it is shown at the top, but if you’re unsuccessful, you’ll get one more chance if you spend some coins, which also increase the percentage. But be careful — even though coins come in ample supply (they’re earned for defeating enemies, opening chests, and watching video ads), you’ll probably want to save them more for healing your team, as you can’t heal them during fights, and it gets expensive later on.

However, I noticed that there is a huge difficulty spike in the third world, as other iTunes reviews have mentioned. The enemies in the third planet can do considerably more damage than what you find in the first two, and the boss has an extraordinary amount of health, making it hard for you to defeat him before your team bites the dust since you’ll be taking a beating even before the boss. I like a challenge, but I feel like the jump in difficulty is a bit high from the second to the third world, so hopefully the developer balances that out in an update. Otherwise, prepare for a lot of grinding, as you need coins to heal your team, and the cost for doing so gets higher and higher depending on the level of your critters. Even watching videos for free coins is not enough, surprisingly.

Still, because of this jump in difficulty, I’ve found myself just going back to the previous two worlds to grind up the coins and more critters. As you find new creatures, you’ll want to see what their potential is when combining it with other creatures that you don’t want to use. To combine, just open up the game menu and go to the Combine section. Drag two creatures into the slots and you’ll get a preview of what the outcome will be. It’s best to pay attention, though, because sometimes you’ll get something with mediocre stats (though it can be fused with something else after), but other times you can get something much better than what you already have. The level of critters that you can end up with are determined by your progress in the game, and usually you will get better results when combining higher level creatures, though you can be pleasantly surprised.

When you collect something new that you want to use, or end up combining two lesser critters into something great, then you may want to add it to your team or replace something weaker. You can just select the “Edit Team” option in the menu to drag-and-drop the monsters you want in your lineup.

I’ve only spent a bit of time with Combo Critters since the launch, but I’m having fun with it so far. The graphics are superb and a nice throwback, the chiptunes and sound effects are delightful, and the gameplay concept is fun and rather addictive. The only thing that needs to be improved in the future is the game’s difficulty, because it’s a bit unbalanced right now. Hopefully this happens sooner rather than later.

I recommend checking out Combo Critters if you enjoy casual RPGs with healthy mix of weird and crazy fighting vegetables in your gaming diet. Combo Critters is available on the App Store as a universal download for your iPhone and iPad for free with in-app purchases for coins and ad-removal.

Source link: http://appadvice.com/reviews

Free Apps to Download TODAY ONLY 07/15/2016

July 15, 2016 by macjeff

Photo Transfer App - Easily copy, delete, share and backup pictures and videos over wifi between devices and computer , Scanner & Translator - convert photo to text and make translation to more than 90 languages , orphinio and more

iPhone:

orphinio ( $0.99 → FREE )

Each pad responds to your fingers in different ways. Slide your fingers across them, slap them, and pluck them to create completely different sounds. The app includes multitouch support, 9 transposable pad layouts, individual voices for each finger, MIDI support, Audiobus support, and the ability to record your tunes and share them via email, AudioCopy, or SoundCloud.

Universal:

Photo Transfer App - Easily copy, delete, share and backup pictures and videos over wifi between devices and computer ( $2.99 → FREE )

If you're transferring to another iDevice, both need to have Photo Transfer installed. If you're transferring to a computer, you just need to install the free companion app offered by the developer. The app also allows you to send photos to your favorite cloud services via a free plugins.

Scanner & Translator - convert photo to text and make translation to more than 90 languages ( $2.99 → FREE )

All you have to do is point your camera at whatever text it is you want to capture. You’re able to crop the image down to ensure better results. Scanner and Translator will automatically grab all of the text in view, and you can instantly have it translated into one of more than 90 languages. Captured and translated text can be listened to as well. All of your scans are automatically saved in history.

Biber and Red Boots Plus ( $1.99 → FREE )

Matilda and the Twin Rabbits threw a surprise birthday party for Uncle Biber. Their gift was a pair of perfectly white boots, which Biber couldn’t wait to put to good use. But Biber unknowingly ruined the boots out in his strawberry patch. This touching story has a happy ending, however, so make sure to join your child and follow along to the very end. The app is also loaded with interactive scenes, mini-games, puzzles, and coloring activities.

Animal Kindergarten Math Games for Kids in Pre-K, Kindergarten and 1st Grade ( $3.99 → FREE )

To help each animal travel through the city, your child will need to successfully complete a variety of math activities. Math activities range from adding and subtracting to counting and identifying geometric shapes. The app includes a total of 8 adorable animals to join, and more than 100 activities. It also includes professional narration and instructions, and loads of positive encouragement.

Source link: http://appadvice.com/apps-gone-free